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Community comes through for Odin

Odin Camus celebrates his 13th birthday with his mother Melissa as hundreds of well-wishers at Lakeview Bowling in Peterborough on Friday, March 20, 2015. Clifford Skarstedt/Peterborough Examiner/QMI Agency

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UPDATES: Fans at the Toronto Maple Leafs-Ottawa Senators NHL hockey game in Ottawa on Saturday night sang Happy Birthday to Peterborough's Odin Camus -- see the video above.... Odin Camus is scheduled to appear Monday morning on the Breakfast Television show on CITY-TV.... His story has now been covered by People magazine online, perezhilton.com and the New York Daily News.

Odin Camus, 13, became an instant celebrity Friday.

It was his birthday. He arrived at Lakeview Bowl in a white stretch limo, with a gaggle of reporters ready to take his photo as he emerged.

Hundreds of people rushing forward to give him presents and cards. One woman breathlessly pressed a $100 bill in his hand.

How’d he get famous overnight?

Odin is an ordinary kid from Peterborough who happens to have Asperger’s syndrome.

And when he invited about 15 friends to come hang out with him at the bowling alley for his birthday Friday night, none of them RSVP’d.

His mother, Melissa Camus, wrote about it on a Facebook page for local mothers. She posted her son’s cellphone number - she’d gotten him a cellphone for his birthday - and asked the moms to send Odin a text to cheer him.

The members of the Moms’ Swap and Buy did more than that: they spread the message online until Odin received more than 5,000 texts from goodhearted strangers.

Hours later Odin’s birthday was trending on Twitter, prompting hundreds of strangers come to the bowling alley bearing gifts.

#odinbirthday was the top Twitter trend in Canada on Friday night. Twitter Canada estimated more than 11,000 birthday greetings for Odin were posted on Twitter.

There were children with their parents, local firefighters and police, childcare workers and university students. Nobody seemed to know Odin, but they all wanted to offer him a gift and take a selfie with him.

Odin, a 7th grader at Highland Heights Public School and a sea cadet, grinned as he stepped out of his limousine to see the crowd.

“It’s amazing how people care. I feel absolutely amazing,” he said.

It had made him feel “a bit lonely” that none of his friends had responded to his birthday party invitation, he said.

But to see the crowds of strangers there with gifts was “extraordinary.”

Odin said he’s been bullied before, but perhaps now he’ll no longer have to be put up with being snubbed.

“Now the bullies will have a second glance at me,” he said.

On Friday birthday tweets were sent to Odin from members of the Raptors, the Blue Jays and the Maple Leafs.

Justin Trudeau tweeted him. So did actor Elijah Wood, the actor best known for playing Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

Odin Camus celebrates his 13th birthday with his mom Melissa and Rafael Albornoz at a bash at Whistle Stop Cafe in Peterborough on Friday, March 20, 2015. Clifford Skarstedt/Peterborough Examiner/QMI Agency